Ever since Apple demanded the consent of all users for tracking, Facebook’s advertising business has suffered noticeably. Even the social network is now forced to admit that Facebook campaigns have become more expensive and inefficient.
Apple’s announcement to ask for consent for so-called app tracking for all external apps in the future has caused quite a bit of resentment in the advertising industry.
Facebook, in particular, tried to defend itself against the changes, which were still imminent at the time, as a result of the update to Apple’s iOS 14 operating system. But in the meantime, the change has become reality and the effects have also become noticeable, especially for Facebook.
New regulation for app tracking on iPhones.
Since the beginning of 2021, Apple has restricted web tracking of personal user data on devices running the iOS 14 operating system (or newer). Many iPhone users will be familiar with the pop-up for app tracking.
At the end of December 2020, Facebook tried to avert this pop-up. To do so, the group launched a large-scale campaign in the Business Suite – the title: “This is how Apple’s changes can affect your marketing activities.”
But that wasn’t the only point that angered app vendors. One of the biggest criticisms was also that Apple only wanted to query app tracking settings for third-party apps. Apple’s own apps initially remained unaffected by the change.
However, the iPhone company has now relented. With the introduction of iOS 15, Apple is now also asking about its own apps.
Costs for Facebook campaigns rise after Apple update
As expected, Apple’s changes are affecting Facebook’s advertising business. Facebook’s Vice President of Product Marketing Graham Mudd writes in a blog post that many advertising customers have signaled “that the impact on your advertising investment has been greater than you expected.”
In the process, he says, the cost of achieving advertising goals “may have increased as well.” In addition, the changes had made it more difficult to measure campaigns.
15 percent fewer conversions from Apple users
One of the reasons Mudd cites for this is that Facebook “underreports iOS web conversions overall by about 15 percent.” However, there are enormous fluctuations among individual customers.
Meanwhile, Facebook is continuing to work on a solution to the problem. The company is “optimistic” about this. Facebook is working on technologies that will simultaneously improve data protection by processing less personal data.
At the same time, however, it should still be possible to “serve personalized ads and measure their effectiveness.” The development of this new technology will still “take some time.”
